


masquerade dreams

by centuriesofexistence



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, masquerade au, this requires a little trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9923864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centuriesofexistence/pseuds/centuriesofexistence
Summary: “You’re already here,” Raven urges. “It’s a masquerade. How can you miss out on the fun of a New Year's Eve masquerade? It’s fun, a little flirting behind masks, play up the anonymity. Then when you see her at work, flirt a little more. It’ll be like Grey’s Anatomy meets Phantom of the Opera.”“Everyone misuses the Phantom of the Opera,” Octavia interrupts. “If you don't read it or see the play, you think the guy in the mask is the one she’s in love with. No one pays attention to the real story.”----At a New Year's Eve charity gala for her hospital, Clarke has a plan to seduce the girl from work she's been crushing on from afar. Nothing ever goes to plan.





	1. Chapter 1

"I look ridiculous," Clarke grumbles, checking her reflection in the tinted window of a BMW parked outside the hotel. She can't decide whether she looks better or worse without the mask, so she checks both, taking the mask on and off, until at last she hears Raven huff beside her.

"Yeah, you do," Raven says. She loops her arm through Clarke's and tugs. "But it's too late now. Come on."

"Raven!"

"What?"

Clarke digs her heels in before Raven can pull them both up the steps of the luxury hotel; Raven's next huff of impatience is even louder. "You said I looked fine when we left!"

Straining to compose herself, Raven finally stops pulling and takes off her own mask—black and winged, of course, a Raven, because Reyes doesn't do subtlety. "If I had so much as joked about it, you never would have agreed to come tonight. Had you not agreed to come tonight, we both would have missed a well-deserved night off.”

"We could have taken a much-needed night off with Netflix and pizza," Clarke whines. "I work with these people. I don't want to spend my night off at some pretentious dinner party."

"It's not work, it's a fundraising gala. For sick kids. It's New Year’s Eve. Have some fun for once, Clarke. Let’s both spend the night with hot doctors."

Her scowl doesn't go away, but the cold December air is starting to get to her, goosebumps rising on all the skin her gown leaves exposed. The moment Raven feels Clarke's body relax, she's tugging her along again,

"You already know a hot doctor," Clarke mutters, almost to herself just before they get into the warmth of the expansive, marble hotel lobby.

"You don't count because I know you too well to sleep with you."

"Fair."

"And put your mask on," Raven adds under her breath. "It's a masquerade ball, you're supposed to be mysterious."

Mask or not, no one would have noticed Clarke's entrance into the ballroom of the hotel: the pure scale of the event automatically makes Clarke and Raven anonymous and mysterious, just two of three hundred masked guests at Alliance Hope Pediatric Hospital's annual fundraising gala. From the decorations and banners adorning the walls to the dozens of white-sheeted banquet tables throughout the room and the hundreds of different colored gowns and costumes and styles gracing the attendees, there is no sense of expense spared for this event. A long bar stretches half of one wall and an elevated stage has a DJ playing music before a little-used dance floor. Dinner will be served later, but guests flock around tables of hors d’oeuvres and platters of champagne flutes in the meantime.

And most notable, in between the gowns and tuxedos, small children with masks of their own, superheroes and princesses and monsters, rush from table to table to ask for small Christmas presents and treats piled in the center of each table. They shriek with delight every time before they rush off to the next table.

That's why the hospital does this. It may all seem extravagant and expensive, but it brings in big donors, and more importantly, the kids love it. They're all patients at the hospital, all healthy enough to have a night away, so naturally they're billed as the guests of honor.

"I'm so happy we came," Raven says automatically, taking it all in. This is Clarke's third gala, but she has to admit, it never really gets less impressive. The event company even set up custom lighting far over their head, likely to be used later, when dinner is over and the kids have gone home and drunkenness and dancing has picked up.

"Come on," Clarke says, looping her arm through Raven's, "let's find them, and claim a table."

Masquerade masks and costumes, it turns out, are actually quite good at concealing people's identities. At least, when they are out en masse like this. Clarke taps on the shoulder of three different slim, dark-haired women before she finally gives up.

"That looked nothing like her!" Raven hisses as they quickly back away from another awkward moment.

"I don't see you trying!"

"I'm looking for Lincoln instead. And—yep, there he is."

"That’s not—oh."

Yep, there he is. Lincoln may wear the same standard black tuxedo every other man wears, but the difference is the fact that he stands head and shoulders—and most of his chest—above them. He sticks out from a mile away among the group he stands talking to. With a closer look, Clarke and Raven confirm it by spotting a slim brunette at his side.

Raven smirks. "Leave it to an engineer to find the simplest solution."

When Lincoln and Octavia see them approaching, they quickly exit the conversation and greet Clarke and Raven in bear hugs, decorum of a black tie affair be damned. Lincoln and Clarke have known each other since med school, despite him being a few years ahead of her; he's the only reason she got a position at Alliance Hope in the first place.

"So what are you supposed to be?" she demands, laughing as she looks up at his mask.

"Batman!" he exclaims indignantly. If his pointed-eared mask didn't give it away, his muscular body beneath a black-on-black tuxedo definitely completes the look.

They look to Octavia. "Batwoman," she adds, pointing to a similar style mask with dashes of red through it.

"The kids love it," Lincoln says with a proud grin.

"The kids love you," Raven replies. In the pediatric cancer ward, Lincoln is by far the most beloved: he's the kind of doctor who shows up to a fancy event as Batman with his girlfriend as Batwoman just to make some kids smile on New Year’s Eve.

"What are you two supposed to be?"

Raven points to her black dress, accented with feathers, and own winged mask. She smirks. "Guess."

"Clever."

"Only because she's been planning this for weeks since I invited her," Clarke gripes, giving Raven a reluctant smile.

"Clarke, on the other hand, has dressed up as someone who didn't want to go and made a last-second choice under pressure from her roommate. It's very convincing, isn't it? Best costume for sure."

Clarke rolls her eyes. If pressed, she could probably claim the blue jeweled mask and silver dress as some kind of mythological figure or something to do with the ocean, but this isn't the kind of costume party where people question what you're dressed up as. If you have a mask and a dress, you pass. Unless you’re one of the kids running around, of course.

Together, the four of them find and claim a table—almost immediately, a gaggle of children run up to them to beg for treats from the provided basket at the center of the table. Once Dr. Lincoln and Dr. Clarke reveal themselves, the kids clamor to tell them all about their costumes.

Lincoln flexes his biceps with a miniature Hercules. “Woah, those muscles!” he exclaims when the kid shows off his tiny arms. “You could pick up a whole car!”

“Once I’m done with my treatment!” Little Hercules replies excitedly as Lincoln shadowboxes with him. “Thanks Doctor Linc!”

Meanwhile, Clarke fawns over two twin girls, dressed up as angels; they blush and smile when she tells them that she’s pretty sure they’re visiting from heaven. “I don’t think you two got enough candy,” she whispers conspiratorially, and they giggle and hold out their baskets for Clarke to drop in a few more treats. As more and more children gather around their favorite doctors, who sit and listen with rapt attention all about their Christmas stories, Raven and Octavia slip away to the bar to pick up drinks for the four of them.

When the kids start to dissipate, flitting off to other tables to fill up their baskets, Clarke sits back in her chair and feels how sore smiling has made her cheeks. Already, dressing up and giving up her Friday night has been worth it, just to see the looks on their faces. All her reluctance about the gala melts away—Lincoln gives her a knowing grin—and Clarke looks around at the ballroom with new appreciation.

Raven and Octavia reappear a minute later, handing off glasses of champagne. Raven takes her seat next to Clarke and leans close as Clarke takes a sip. “So, Octavia told me that a doctor you’re crushing on is here tonight?”

She chokes on the champagne. So much for not regretting this.

“Octavia!”

“Lincoln told me!”

“Linc!”

“Sorry!” he says, supremely not-sorry when he holds his hands up and laughs. “Why is it a big secret? What’s the problem?”

“Nonsense things I tell you after a 24 hour surgery shift should be ignored,” Clarke says, rolling her eyes. “Not shared with your girlfriend so that they can crop up at a gala event. All I said was that I thought she was pretty.”

Lincoln shrugs. “She is. She’s nice, too. Quiet. You should talk to her tonight.”

Octavia hums her agreement, but Clarke shakes her head. “I’m not hitting on anyone tonight. It’s New Year’s Eve, it’s a kid’s fundraiser. I’m going to say hi to the kids and mingle and then go home.”

“You’re already here,” Raven urges. “It’s a masquerade. How can you miss out on the fun of a masquerade? It’s fun, a little flirting behind masks, play up the anonymity. Then when you see her at work, flirt a little more. It’ll be like Grey’s Anatomy meets Phantom of the Opera.”

“Everyone misunderstands the Phantom of the Opera,” Octavia points out. “Everyone thinks the guy in the mask is the one she’s in love with, no one pays attention to the real story.”

Raven glares at her, annoyance plain behind her own mask.

Lincoln sits forward, the ever-logical voice. “Look, you’re adults. Why not just talk to her? Have a drink, dance, get to know each other. It’s damn near impossible at work.”

If she wasn’t already wearing a mask, Clarke would drop her face into her hands to hide it. Following every long shift from now on, she needs to completely avoid all human contact, lest she say something stupid to Lincoln the next time she’s deliriously tired. It’s not even a crush—it’s more of a long-distance attraction, a few passing words in the hallways of the hospital. She works in the cancer ward with Lincoln and Clarke works in the operating room, so Lincoln is right, it is nearly impossible to cross paths accidentally. Which Clarke prefers. She doesn’t need the distraction. Occasionally recognizing how attractive she is, is a different story.

“She looks really good tonight,” Lincoln adds, eyes twinkling.

But…maybe a distraction would be okay tonight.

“Maybe,” Clarke mutters begrudgingly. Raven smirks.

“She’s wearing braids, a white dress, and a black mask,” Lincoln says. “Just for your consideration. She’s at a table near the bar.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Dinner won’t be served for another hour, and Clarke’s group is one of the few already seated. Since the only others are the elderly and the already intoxicated, and since Raven and Octavia want to make the rounds and take in the sights, it’s not long before they’re back on their feet with fresh glasses of champagne.

“French aristocrats, Greek gods, jesters, royalty…It’s not bad,” Octavia muses. “Just as long as no one goes for any lame guy who calls himself a hacker because he's wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.”

“No promises,” Lincoln says.

Octavia looks to Clarke. “Clarke?”

“Already tried that, no desire to go back. Finn was more than enough.”

She nods approvingly and shifts her gaze to Raven.

“Also Finn,” Raven says, eyes narrowed at the memory. Thank god their friendship at least had come out intact.

“Well that settles it. Anyone else, fair game.”

“We passed a guy who had a cool lion theme going on,” Raven says. “I could go for that.”

“You should. It’s New Year’s Eve. End the year with a bang.”

“Only if Clarke agrees to another glass of champagne.”

Clarke waves her third glass at Raven. They’ve stayed well away from the bar, but there is no shortage of waiters carrying trays of drinks. The luxurious feel of the night necessitates constantly having a drink in hand, and she doesn’t mind drinking them down despite her attitude. “You’re going to hit on a doctor dressed as a lion, I’m not the one who needs liquid courage,” she says. Nonetheless, she finishes off her glass. “Your turn.”

Challenge accepted. Raven drinks the rest of her glass, lowering it from her smirking lips. “Okay. Let’s go to the bar, get something stronger, and then I’ll go pick up the lion and you’ll find your secret crush. Deal?”

It’s going to be a long night if she doesn’t get out of this soon. “I’ll agree to drinks. O, Linc, do you two want anything?”

Octavia and Lincoln put in their orders and Clarke and Raven go off threading through the crowd. Since their arrival, even more people have flooded into the room, and it becomes a battle to push through the multitude of warriors and literary figures and Mardi Gras masks. Everything dress and mask is gorgeous, but the press of the bodies around them makes it difficult to appreciate the aesthetics of each individual.

Still, the closer they get to the bar, the more Clarke finds herself searching.

 _She looks really good tonight,_ Lincoln had said. Braided hair, a green dress, a black mask, near the bar. Clarke snorts—they must pass a dozen women of the same description. She loathes herself for looking longer at each one, but…

They emerge into a pocket of space in front of the bar and Clarke comes to a stop. Drawing level with her shoulder, Raven takes one look at her partially hidden face and reads her mind.

“At least tell me her name?”

On cue, Clarke’s eyes settle on her.

Lincoln’s right, she does look good. A flowing white dress, Grecian style, streaked with black and gold; and a fine, elegant black mask that covers more than half her face. Clarke knows her stride from seeing her in the hallways of the hospital, and it’s only enhanced by the tall heels she wears. Mask or not, Clarke knows it’s her. She can feel it. More importantly, she knows that she has to talk to her tonight, despite her wariness, despite her words to her friends earlier. Everything changes at the sight of her, somehow. Clarke’s lips turn upward in a small smile as she watches her lean over the bar for a quiet word to the bartender amidst the clamoring guests.

“Niylah,” Clarke murmurs to Raven, entranced.

 

*

 

Clarke gets drunk, and that’s where things start to go wrong.

It’s not an intentional drunk. In fact, she shuts down ideas of Niylah, pulls Raven back from the bar, and retreats to their table without the drinks they planned to get. It’s the responsible thing. But when an overeager waiter provides her with not one but two golden, sparkling mixed drinks in less than ten minutes, she doesn’t have the resolve to refuse. She can feel it in her bones from her bare shoulders to her already aching feet, that the second one is a bad idea. She rarely drinks as it is, and a wildly varying sleep schedule for the past week and an empty stomach make her head spin.

Setting the glass on the table, she levers herself to her feet, tall in her heels—the floor beneath her wavers dangerously as the full weight of her intoxication hits her. And then the next words spill out before she can stop them, seemingly as a consequence.

“I’m gonna talk to her.” She gives them a decisive nod.

Lincoln registers who “her” is in an instant, sitting back in his chair with a smile like a proud father. “You should,” he says, the same moment Octavia realizes and prompts Clarke with, “And then what?”

And she realizes she needs a plan. Clarke never does anything without planning it first.

“Steps,” she decides. “Then steps.”

Raven raises a brow.

 

*

 

These steps form in her mind quickly, and with little of the plan disclosed to her friends even when they ask. In any other situation, with any other person, this would be a cause for concern, a reason to pull Clarke back into her seat and dissuade her, but Clarke’s determination is second only to her uncanny ability to fabricate functioning sobriety even when she’s had too much; her friends know she’ll be fine.

Clarke decides against a direct approach, remembering Raven’s words about the anonymity of a masquerade. The idea, freshly considered, has a sudden glittering appeal. The mystery, the chase. She’ll send Niylah a drink. Exchange a few words with her on the dance floor or in passing among the crowd. Gain and keep her attention. Maybe make her jealous with another party-goer. Charge the atmosphere with so much energy until they can finally get a moment alone. And then…she hasn’t thought that many steps ahead yet, but it shouldn’t be complicated.

When dinner finishes at eight, the New Year’s Eve party begins in earnest and the youngest of sleepy-eyed kids begin to head up to their complimentary hotel rooms to bed. The lights dim, the music volume picks up, people already disguised by masks grow more mysterious in the half-darkness.

Clarke, on the other hand, shifts toward sober, but she keeps the plan solid in her mind. So when the night truly begins, she goes into action.

Leaving her friends behind, Clarke slips through the crowd with a fluid ease she hadn’t possessed before, gliding to the bar. It’s more open now, bodies having migrated to the dance floor and dinner tables, and it would be easy to grab a drink.

But she’s not focused on getting the bartender’s attention.

Instead, her eyes settle on Niylah immediately. The girl is not hard to find, even as she blends into the group of men and women who stand around her in conversation--it's like Clarke is drawn toward her. Clarke leans on the bar, watching the way she looks between speakers before adding her own flash of insight. Clarke could just slip into that group, introduce herself, look for a friendly face and happen on Niylah. The Lincoln connection would be easy enough. But she's already decided on her set of necessary steps that will dictate how the night will go, and she has never in her life allowed herself to deviate from a plan, so she simply watches from afar for a bit longer, preparing herself. It's only when her eyes run over the girl's bare arms and up to the way she cradles her drink to her shoulder does Clarke recognize that Niylah's glass is empty: her first opportunity.

She turns away from the entrancing sight, searching for the eyes of one of the three bartenders, and nearly jumps back when she sees one standing right in front of her.

He smiles at the look of surprise on her face. "Finally ready to order?"

Another second and she at last registers that he had already asked her twice, without her response as she was busy staring. She clears her throat and stumbles on the first syllable, but manages to get it out: "The woman in the white dress, there. I'd like to send her another drink."

“The Greek goddess?” he asks when he picks her out.

“Aptly,” Clarke replies with a small laugh, a compliment the bartender appreciates. He gets her game.

“No problem, I’ll get it right now. Do you want her to know it’s from you?”

Her second opportunity. It was one of her steps, she just didn’t realize it would appear to her so quickly and organically. Before Clarke replies, she casts a look down the bar in a half-second study of her potential options. A tiger, another Greek god, two versions of the Phantom of the Opera, a few generic multi-colored masks. Only one of the party-goers at the bar is a woman, but she's attractive beneath her red mask, with dark hair and a dark green dress that flatters an athletic form. Seeing that, Clarke makes her decision in half a second, turning back to the bartender.

"Absolutely, let her know it's from me."

As he moves off, so does Clarke. She slides away from her open section of the bar and makes her way down the seats, to the girl in the red mask she had picked out for this part of the play. She can feel eyes on her as she walks, but none of them are of the prize she wants, just yet, so she pays them no mind.

The girl at the bar senses her coming and turns her head halfway to acknowledge Clarke's presence when Clarke stops behind her. "Your dress is gorgeous," Clarke says, with a broad smile. Non-threatening. All she needs to do is befriend her and strike up a conversation.

“Thank you, so is yours,” is her warm reply. The girl gives her a quick look up and down that Clarke recognizes from plenty of college parties, even if they were so long ago. “What are you drinking?”

She’ll credit her planning, but it’s truly pure luck that she may have stumbled upon one of the only other women attracted to women at the entire gala, next to herself and Niylah. Any other night and she would capitalize on it, but right now she’s on a mission, and this is just one more golden opportunity to accomplish her goal—and so she slides into the seat beside the girl and orders whatever she’s drinking.

They don’t exchange names—Raven was right when she said the anonymity is appealing—but they do make small talk. Clarke tells her she’s a doctor; the girl in the red mask introduces herself as a donor to the hospital.

“Well, my family is; I’ll be expected to when I’m forced to take over the company.”

“That’s impressive,” Clarke says. “I hope you keep up the donations once you’re running everything.”

She inclines her head. “If I end up doing that. Who knows, maybe Europe will call my name and I’ll make a run for it. None of that is as impressive as being a doctor at your age though.”

“Family profession,” Clarke says. As she speaks, the bartender slides her her drink, reminding her of her original goal in speaking to this girl in the first place. She looks across the bar at the perfect moment, catching sight of Niylah with her new drink. The girl stares directly at her, disengaged from her conversation, her chin ever so slightly raised as she holds Clarke’s gaze; they’re far enough apart that Clarke can’t see the color of her eyes or any emotion within them, but she imagines them flicking between Clarke and the girl beside her, curiosity piqued. Clarke lets her lips turn up in a smile. Step one, accomplished.

And she swears she gets a tiny smirk back before she looks demurely away.

The clock ticks toward midnight, but no one at the gala shows any desire to speed time up to the end of the year. Partiers lounge at the banquet tables, the more wild ones spin and twist on the dance floor, and everyone streams back and forth from the bar Clarke has planted herself at. The people watching proves to be the most engaging activity for people like her, and people like the girl in the red mask beside her as they keep up a steady conversation about different costumes and couples and drunken antics they spot as they watch the crowd and sip their drinks.

But even as she talks to the girl in the red mask, some part of Clarke is always attuned to the girl in the white dress across the bar. She catches Clarke looking, once, when one of the few remaining kids runs up to her and hugs her around the waist. It’s the boy in the Hercules costume, the one Lincoln was playing with earlier; Niylah must be another of his doctors. She hugs Hercules back, and when he takes off again, she glances up and sees Clarke watching. This time, there’s a flash of a smile.

A few moments later, a waiter sidles over and hands Clarke a napkin instead of a new drink. Confused, she unfolds it to discover a note written in a quick, sharp scrawl:

_Thank you for the drink. If your next one isn’t already bought, it’s on me._

Clarke looks up, and the girl in the white dress is watching carefully for her response; Clarke can’t believe that this is working so cleanly and so easily, so early in the night. She inclines her head to give the girl permission to buy her a drink, and satisfaction floods through her when Niylah calls the bartender toward her to put the order in.

“Would you like to dance?” The girl in the red mask asks her suddenly, pulling Clarke back to the present moment and reminding her that she’s still there.

“Not yet,” Clarke says. But she gives the girl her full attention anyway, surprised by how natural it feels. “So you said you didn’t want to take over the family business. What would happen if you didn’t?”

She smiles. “I’d probably be disowned, and my younger sister would take over a few years after me.”

“Oh, siblings? I’m an only child.”

“A younger sister; she’s fifteen, so it would be a while before she takes anything over. The only part of my family that I do like.”

That’s getting dangerously close to too personal, moving past inebriated gala small talk and into drunken dive bar confessional sessions. Clarke pulls back after the mistake. With a sweet smile, she nods and glances around, eyes falling again on the flash of a white dress--a retreating white dress. Niylah is headed for the dance floor, drink in hand. Later Clarke will say it was to escape any deep interpersonal exchange with the girl in the red mask, but there is only one reason she slides off the barstool and grabs her hand.

“Let’s go dance.”

Clarke holds her drink above her head and the other men and women on the dance floor clearly have quite a few drinks already in them, but the night hasn't even reached nine and the oldest children at the party are still going strong: this keeps the mood on the dance floor light-hearted and free as Clarke and the red mask girl make their way onto it. Raven swirls past her; Lincoln lifts Octavia into the air; doctors laugh as they swing dance with their tiny patients; and Clarke lets herself go for the first time tonight, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt as she dances in and out of the arms of the pretty girl in the red mask. It’s no club, and no one dances pressed up against their partner, but even still, the two of them move in comfortable unison to a summer pop song. It’s familiar. It’s nice. It’s enough to make Clarke forget about everything else, right up until she sees someone in white dance past her and the mere color of the dress reminds her of why she’s dancing with this girl in the first place. This is all part of her plan. She has to stick to it; no slips in focus.

With a surprising reluctance, Clarke spins away from the girl in the red mask, glancing around and over her shoulder to scan the crowd--and she’s rewarded with a dark gaze leveled on her from the girl she’s searching for.

Niylah is watching her dance, sparkling green bright from the center of her dark mask. As reluctant as Clarke might have been to take her attention from the girl she’s currently dancing with, seeing and meeting this other girl’s gaze shoots electricity down her spine, thrilling her. And she can _move_ : she looks so good on the dancefloor that Clarke doesn’t mind being caught watching, so the other girl makes no effort to tear her eyes away from Clarke. They dance for each other, in that moment.

Clarke is inexplicably drawn to her. She glides toward her, slowly enough so that the girl in the red mask isn’t abandoned--Niylah watches her all the way, and just as they get within earshot, she turns away. Clarke’s laugh gets lost in the music.

As Niylah turns again, Clarke reaches out and catches her forearm.

“You look really good,” she says, just loud enough for the other girl to catch before they separate again.

Another half a song passes before they get close enough to speak again, and this time, it’s longer: “So do you,” the girl replies. “Do we know each other?”

“Maybe.”

And they pull apart, and Clarke goes back to dancing with the girl in the red mask, warm deep in her abdomen with the satisfaction of knowing she’s being watched as she moves. Niylah isn’t the only one watching--several men and women are--but Clarke only cares about the one pair of eyes. It shifts everything for her, her light-hearted turn on the dance floor become darker and charged with energy, but everyone around her laughs and smiles like nothing has changed. Raven grabs Clarke for a song and they share a dance with a boy Clarke treated a few months before. When Raven releases Clarke a few minutes later, she gives a meaningful glance at the girl in the red mask and shoots a broad smile to Clarke. The message is clear.

But it’s Niylah who reaches out for Clarke first before she can get back to the girl in the red mask. She leans in close, like she’s had too much to drink, but her eyes are as sharp as ever: it’s desire, not alcohol, driving her action. Her hand snakes up Clarke’s forearm and pulls her in so that she can whisper instead of shout over the music.

“I’d buy you another drink,” she says, lips almost pressed into Clarke’s hair, “But I’m leaving after this song. So you should just keep your eyes on the girl you’ve been dancing with.”

Clarke pouts and quite nearly moans her displeasure. “Why not? Stay here, celebrate the New Year.”

“Other obligations,” she says with a coy smile.

“Can I convince you to stay?” Clarke presses closer, tongue dancing over her lower lip. She watches the other girl’s mouth fall open with the force of the breath that rushes out of her chest, and Clarke laughs at the struggle on her face. This is working out beautifully.

At the sound of Clarke’s laughter, she regains her reticent mystery and gives Clarke a small smirk.

“ _Maybe_.”

And she releases her, folding back into the crowd with a look up and down Clarke’s body that leaves her spinning--even as she stands still in the middle of the dancefloor. All of it happened in just a few seconds, a single heated exchange that no one else around them noticed. When Clarke turns away, she doesn’t search for the girl in the red mask, but she finds her anyway, wholly unimpressed. The exchange with Niylah had to have been more obvious than she thought.

“Girlfriend?” she asks, thinly-veiled irritation beneath a faux-sweetness.

“Uh...co-worker,” Clarke answers sheepishly.

Not a good enough answer; the girl in the red mask puts her hands up in surrender and steps away from Clarke. “Interesting Grey’s Anatomy dynamic Alliance Hope has going on. Have a nice night...what was your name?”

“Clarke.”

“Have a nice night, Clarke.”

“Wait!” she says, for reasons she will never really know. Curiosity, mostly. Maybe politeness. Or guilt. “What was your name?”

“Luna,” she spits, and turns on her heel.

Nothing moves Clarke to call after her.

 

*

 

Suddenly weary of dancing, Clarke bails off of the dance floor and heads for the bar. She’s dreaming of a cold drink and a moment to herself, but at the call of her name, she turns to see Raven, Lincoln, and Octavia leaning against the bar, beers in hand and wide grins on their faces. They look as if they’ve been watching a sporting event, which instantly tells Clarke just exactly what they’re so amused about.

“So how are those steps working, Clarke?” Raven calls when Clarke heads over to meet them.

She doesn’t bother to pretend that she didn’t blow it with Luna; they definitely watched it happen. But as for Niylah...Clarke shrugs, smirking. “Slowly but surely,” she says. She waves the bartender over. “You remember me, right? The girl in the Greek goddess dress, from earlier...I’d like to pay for her drink the next time she comes up to the bar.”

The bartender gets it, but Lincoln is definitely drunk. “Greek goddess dress?” he spouts, confused.

“Niylah,” Clarke tells him. “The girl in the red mask was...more of a decoy.”

“Uh…” But Octavia hits his shoulder to jar him from his confusion and keep him from saying anymore.

“It was part of her plan. No harm no foul. Keep up, Linc.”

“Whatever you say.”

He’s a nice guy, and Clarke has adored him since she was just a resident and he took her under his wing, but Clarke has a ruthless streak that he lacks. Octavia and Raven have it too (Lincoln barred them all from game night years ago). She usually keeps hers hidden much better than they do, but when it comes out, the three of them understand each other and work in perfect harmony. If her plan tonight had required them, she has no doubt that they could have robbed a bank together with her and gotten away with it. Luckily for the rest of the world, she doesn’t need them for this one.

Clarke orders herself a beer and relaxes with her friends for the next few minutes, re-ordering the steps in her head. Niylah had said she was leaving; maybe Clarke should set her sights on someone else, as suggested. Pondering the idea, turns to look down the bar, only to find a folded napkin sitting next to her beer, courtesy of the bartender. She grabs it.

It’s another note, in the same sharp handwriting as before.

 _You’ve convinced me_.

That’s an invitation. Clarke’s convinced her to stay. The scraps of the plan she was in the process of coming up with fly out the window.

A scan of the bar and the dinner tables proves fruitless. Evidently, she made it to the bar and back to the dance floor without Clarke noticing, but the note invitation imbues her with new life and sends her rushing back to the dance floor, the encouragement of her friends echoing after her.

The magnetic attraction is undeniable, even cosmic: they don’t just find each other, they damn near run into each other as Clarke squeezes past another couple. Niylah catches her arm, and as soon as they recognize one another’s masks, they move instantly together, gliding to the music as if they had planned this all night. What was comfortable with Luna is effortless with her, the gorgeous girl in front of Clarke. She no longer worries about impressing her or attracting her, just about staying close to her as they lose themselves in song after song and the heavy alcohol pour of Clarke’s latest drink seeps into her veins and mixes with the pleasure pounding through them already.

Niylah’s heels are taller than Clarke initially thought, too. This close, Clarke stands a few inches short of her, and from her memory of Niylah in the hospital hallways, Clarke is almost certain she usually stands taller than the other girl. Not that she minds, now. In the darkness, this angle makes her cheekbones and jaw look especially sharp, and they’re accented by tiny beads of sweat that make her skin glitter and shine down her neck and chest, into the bodice of her dress.

She’s drunk. They’re dancing so close. They have no idea how much time has passed. Clarke stares at the expanse of bare skin over the upper half of the girl’s body and she wants nothing more in this world than to taste it, to kiss every inch and drag her lips over as she pulls the top of the dress down to reveal more and more of her body to explore.

Reading her mind, Niylah’s hand snakes behind Clarke and up her back, pulling her even closer, so that they’re nearly pressed body to body as they dance. Clarke gains just enough lucidity to look over Niylah’s shoulder at the digital clock projected on one wall: 10:50.

It’s too early. She can’t break now. She can’t give in. She has to last until midnight, and at this rate, she won’t make it.

Clarke doesn’t even manage to look up into the other girl’s green eyes. She makes it to her parted, feels a final rush of desire, and has to pull back. She nearly runs from the dance floor.

_Not yet._

 

_*_

 

God, fresh air. Clarke pulls in deep lungfuls, not so much because the air was thick and hard to breathe in the center of the dancefloor, but because the alcohol mixed with the intoxicating presence of the other girl was doing dangerous things to Clarke’s body, and she needs to regain some semblance of reality before she acts on the desire building within her. She still has an hour until midnight.

Pushing her mask up onto her forehead, Clarke takes a few wobbly steps to a nearby table and falls into a vacant seat, recovering. She scans the crowd she just escaped from, making sure Niylah hadn’t followed her out, but also searching subconsciously for the other girl she’s gotten closer to throughout the evening. One more dance with her might stretch out the time long enough to get her to midnight, when she can make a final move in the dying moments of the year. She’s so engrossed in her search that it shocks her to hear her own name from the other occupant of the table.

“Clarke Griffin, right?”

It’s a vaguely familiar voice; Clarke puts on her best façade before she turns to greet the person.

And when she does, that façade vanishes with the electric shock that jolts through her body.

“Niylah?”

It is Niylah. _The real Niylah_. Niylah, from the hospital, instantly recognizable. She stares at Clarke in confusion, her black mask sitting on the table. Black mask, white dress, braids in her hair, just as Lincoln had said…but she is without a doubt not the girl Clarke has been exchanging long looks and drinks and dances with all night. This is the first Clarke has even seen Niylah since she arrived.

“Yeah, I work with Lincoln,” Niylah says slowly, brows furrowed. Her confusion turns to concern as Clarke continues to gape at her as if she grew another head. “Is everything okay?”

Clarke can’t formulate a response. She runs her eyes over Niylah’s short white dress, again and again, and then her mask, trying to look for some similarity that may tell her that Niylah really is the girl she’s been hitting on all night, but she finds none. How did she not recognize it wasn’t Niylah? She doesn’t know how she could have confused them, but as she considers it, the thought screams in her head like a siren: then who’s the girl? Who’s the girl? Who’s the girl? Looking back out to the crowd, she sees no sign of her.

“I’m…I’m fine,” Clarke manages, shaking her head.

“Lincoln told me you there was a chance you were coming tonight,” Niylah says. “I was hoping to see you. Do you want to grab a drink? You look like you could use one.”

The hopeful tone of her voice nearly draws a laugh out of Clarke, the way it turns the whole night on its head. She’d drunkenly come up with a plan and spent the night putting it into action, getting entangled with a mystery girl, only to stumble upon her actual target hours later and have her side step all of Clarke’s grand plans with an easy answer. So there it is: a drink with Niylah, like she’d wanted from the beginning.

She looks over Niylah’s dress and mask one more time, and all she can picture is the other girl.

“I’ll have to pass,” Clarke says, with an apologetic smile. “I just needed a breather…I have to go meet someone.”

Niylah nods earnestly, jumping to her feet and grabbing her mask. “That’s fine! I’m on my way out…I’ll see you at work, then.”

“I’ll see you at work, Niylah.”

As soon as she’s gone, Clarke is on her feet again; decision made, new life in her legs, new determination in her bones. She absolutely does need a drink, as Niylah pointed out, but it’s for fuel, not because she’s so shaken. The last five minutes have brought her back to sobriety like she was dropped into a freezing pool, and now she has less than sixty minutes to get back to where she was and fall back into the embrace of the girl on the dance floor.

Maybe her determination is evident from the way she’s moving, because the bartender notices her from across the room and stands waiting at her approach. Clarke skips a greeting.

“Simple vodka soda,” she says, reaching for her cash.

“Got it. It’s paid for already, by the way.”

“It is?”

“Your Greek goddess. She paid for a drink for you in advance, before she left.”

Clarke’s heart sinks into her stomach. “She left?”

He shrugs. “She seemed like she was on her way out. Had one of the kids with her, he looked exhausted. Still want that drink?”

Even as she deflates, she accepts it, but it’s not long after he whips up a strong vodka soda that Clarke sinks into a nearby chair and loses her taste for the alcohol altogether; she sets it aside and slouches. Defeat. The mystery girl has eluded her. For all her grand plans, the universe will always be grander and tonight, it outsmarted her. Chewing her lip, she looks out across the ballroom, searching for Raven so that maybe they can return to their apartment with what’s left of her dignity and watch the Times Square New Year’s Eve show to end the year.

Then a hand drops onto her shoulder and squeezes; there’s a voice in her ear.

_“I have until midnight. Do you want to dance?”_

It takes Clarke a full second to react--in that time, her Greek goddess, the mystery girl in the white dress, has already released her and strode past her, toward the dance floor. When she looks over her shoulder to see if Clarke is following, Clarke jumps to her feet and nearly stumbles in her haste to catch up. They make it to the dance floor at the same time and it’s unclear who pulls who but they find themselves in the middle, pressed together, Clarke melting against a body that she has wanted all night.

They have forty-five minutes until the ball drops and the fireworks go up for the New Year. In stark contrast to earlier, the dance floor is dark, the bodies are closer together, and those still standing have drowned their inhibitions and it is exceedingly clear who is going home with whom. That’s just the nature of the late hour of New Year’s Eve. But for Clarke and her mystery girl, the night takes on the added element of the race against time, the desperate furtive attempt to squeeze it all in before midnight, like a clock is ticking to the end of the world and they don’t have anything left to lose but each other. Nothing else matters. They grind into each other and roll to the music, the other girl’s hands on Clarke’s hips and every few seconds her fingers tighten for half a second, as if she wants nothing more than to pull Clarke even closer but she’s trying to resist. Clarke wishes she would give in: the only way they could be closer is if they were to pull each other into a kiss and dance like that.

Twenty minutes to midnight. Clarke wants it more than anything. Her blood rushes in her ears, drowning out even the music. But be it chivalry or trepidation, the other girl won’t kiss her. In one last desperate attempt to get close to her, Clarke circles her arms behind the girl’s neck and pulls her close, brushing her lips over her ear.

“So am I going to find out who you are?” Clarke breathes.

“You don’t know your Greek mythology?” She smirks when they pull away to look at each other, green eyes flashing mischievously when Clarke rolls hers.

“Science was more of my thing.”

The girl arches a brow in appreciation. “So you’re a doctor? You’re young, I haven't met one as young as you.”

“I’m smart,” Clarke says icily, and the girl’s fingers tighten on her hips in both apology and reassurance that she was only joking anyway. “So tell me. Remind me of my Greek mythology.”

“Athena is the goddess of wisdom, arts, literature, and war.” Clarke can’t tell if the flush in her cheeks rises because her heart is pumping like Clarke’s or because she’s embarrassed; Clarke decides she likes either way. “It wasn’t my first choice, but it served its purpose and I feel strangely drawn to it now. And what are you supposed to be?”

“Depends…” And in an act befitting of the final hour of the year, Clarke makes a wild gamble. “Who’s Athena’s lover?”

“She’s a maiden goddess, actually.”

Clarke narrows her eyes beneath her mask, biting her lip. “Meaning no sex, no romance? Is that why you picked her?”

She shakes her head slowly, then leans in to whisper in Clarke’s ear. “The similarity ends far before that.”

Clarke’s breath catches in her throat and she barely gets the next two words out. “Oh really?”

Her response is to pull away from Clarke, letting air rush into the space between them; Clarke dives forward to keep the contact with her body, like it’s a drug, but then she realizes that the girl in the white dress and the black mask with the pretty green eyes has kept her hand entwined with Clarke. She’s tugging her along. Upon this realization, in the same way Clarke melted when their bodies pressed together, all of the resistance melts out of her and she gladly follows this girl off the dance floor and toward a pair of back doors.

 

*

 

The hotel hosting the gala is old and certainly grand, but the gardens are not exactly palatial. A meandering path occasionally decorated with a stone bench, a glowing fountain, a small groves of trees and shrubs.

But with the thrill of anonymity, with the alcohol clouding their vision, with the hot prickling feeling of desire rushing through them, the gardens have all the romance and grandeur of a royal estate. The freezing winter air can’t even touch her as the girl leads her down one of these paths, weaving them through the grounds until they’ve disappeared into a grove of trees, out of sight from the hotel and completely alone.

Ahead of her, the girl stops, spins, and lets Clarke’s momentum carry them together and their lips collide.

Despite their frantic rush out to the gardens, their first kiss is gentle and full of sweetness. It's such a shocking shift from the energy of the moment that Clarke gasps into the girl’s mouth; the other girl gives a breathy laugh in return and glides her hands up to pull her closer and Clarke swears she falls a little bit in love.

But as the realization dawns that they finally have one another, after a night of watching and aching and coming just within each other’s orbits before spinning away again, the sweetness doesn't stand in the way of desire long. The long-smoldering embers in her chest ignite and the kiss turns wanting, desperate. It turns _hungry_. The fingers that had some restraint in the hotel dig into Clarke’s hips now and pull her flush to the other girl’s body as they angle their heads and deepen the kiss, teeth clashing, tongues dipping into open mouths. Her mind goes blank. Her hands take on a life of their own, ghosting up the girl’s back to the hem of dress and latching on there, tugging it down a few inches. And at the suggestion, the other girl whimpers and the way her hips roll makes Clarke go weak in the knees. She can only see this night ending one way: with her doing everything she can to draw that reaction out as many times as possible.

The rolling of her hips doesn't stop. Like they were inside, their bodies begin to move in unison, grinding together, but with a darker and more seductive, dangerous intent. Inspired, Clarke shifts her leg to fit between the other girl’s; at the sudden friction, an obscene moan rips from her throats and she grinds herself down onto Clarke’s thigh. Shivers of pleasure roll through her body in a way that sends them deep into the pit of Clarke’s stomach too.

“God, I've wanted you all night,” Clarke breathes as the girl gasps. In reply, all the girl can do is kiss her.

Her fingers find the zipper on the back of the girl’s dress and everything goes numb when the girl leans into Clarke’s hand, all but begging her to pull it down. All of that smooth skin...

Suddenly, a rising symphony of music and cheering and shouting from inside the hotel reaches them, shattering the otherworldly illusion of their existence and thrusting them back into the present. They pull apart, looking at one another in confusion, until it hits them: midnight. A New Year.

“Happy New Year,” the girl offers, with a smile.

“I don't even know your name,” Clarke says, breathless and close to laughing at the mad rush of it all.

A pause as she too recovers her breath. “Lexa,” she murmurs. “Yours?”

She almost doesn't answer. Somehow, for some inexplicable reason, the named washes over Clarke with familiarity, making her whole soul relax. The feeling is so striking and sudden that it pulls the air from her chest and she has to fight to recover it when she remembers that Lexa asked her a question.

“I'm Clarke.”

A shadow crosses Lexa’s face for a second, a flash of something unnamable. And then, “Happy New Year, Clarke.”

“Happy New Year, Lexa.”

Lexa only has to tilt forward to recapture Clarke’s lips, softly again this time. It's chaste and gentle, far more gentle than the usual kind of New Year’s Eve kisses. Clarke doesn't mind. When Lexa rests their foreheads together, she feels she could stay this way forever.

“You're shivering,” Lexa observes.

Standing still, even wrapped in Lexa’s arms, the cold has started to get to her. “I'm fine,” she whispers against Lexa’s neck, trying to hold steady. She fails. “But I wouldn't mind if we found someplace warmer, more private.”

The quiet laugh Lexa gives is full of regret and that answers Clarke’s unspoken question. Her heart sinks.

"I can't. I don't have long past midnight,” Lexa says, brushing a kiss over Clarke’s cheek.

"Why not?"

"I told you…obligations."

It takes everything she has to keep from groaning, because the vagueness is no longer coy or teasing: it’s a genuine escape route. "They can't wait a half hour?"

"No, they can't.” She sighs heavily and presses her forehead against Clarke’s again. “But I'll see you again."

"How?" Clarke demands.

"I promise."

She kisses her once more, deep, and hard, and it lowers Clarke defenses so much that Lexa is able to pull away before she can protest; by the time Clarke opens her eyes, Lexa’s gone.

 

*

 

She doesn't know how much time passes in the garden, but once she's back inside, Clarke finds Raven, somehow. It’s a damn near miracle, in the drunken haze she’s in. Cloudy-eyed and dizzy, she forms only vague memories of Raven calling a cab for them, and falling asleep on Raven’s shoulder on the way home. Raven never asks, and Clarke never breathes a word of it to her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way too long between part 1 and part 2; my apologies. This is unbeta-d, so all mistakes are mine!
> 
> Thanks for the ever-patient support!

_I can't stop thinking about her._

It's pure, fortunate circumstance that Lincoln has finished his shift and come in for their usual mid-week lunch now, when Clarke is only ten hours into her own shift—she has the sense to bite the words back. At the end of a twenty-four hour surgery shift? The surreality that sets in with the exhaustion would have her spilling every secret to him just before he heads home to Octavia. Clarke would be telling him all about Lexa, the masquerade girl: her pretty green eyes, the way she held Clarke close, the smirk that pulled at her lips and the way it turn into a real smile later, even the way they kissed. She could tell him all of this in perfect detail, because she hasn't stopped reliving it in the week since the masquerade gala.

It all seems a dream, now, when she looks back on the hazy night. Especially Lexa's promise of "I'll see you again." It was all fantasy, but this feels the most out of Clarke's reach, and she berates herself every day that she didn't do more to make it concrete. A date, a phone number—hell, a last name.

"We're making dinner Saturday night," Lincoln says, completely unaware he's interrupting Clarke's inner turmoil. He leans back in the chair before her desk. "Are you and Raven coming?"

Of course they are. This has been tradition for years. "Just as long as Octavia isn't experimenting again," Clarke replies. "Otherwise I'm busy."

He chuckles. "I'll let her know. You going to bring a date?"

"Have I ever?"

"That was a roundabout way of asking about your luck last weekend. We left before you did."

"Oh." _He's asking about Niylah._ Usually she's much more astute than that, but she hasn't devoted any thought to anything other than Lexa since that night. "No, no date for me. Especially not one I would bring home to Octavia's cooking."

"I’m cooking!" he exclaims, laughing. "I'm gonna tell her you said that."

"Of course you are," Clarke groans.

"It's too bad though. I thought you two could have been nice together."

And they probably could have. Nice...and boring. They would live in a comfortable relationship for a time before boredom sets in, and it would be especially noticeable because of the way the masquerade would serve as the starting point for their relationship. No one has ever electrified Clarke like Lexa did that night, or occupied her thoughts so completely—and that's despite Clarke knowing nothing about her. To settle for Niylah after meeting both her and Lexa at the masquerade would only make the mundanity of the relationship all the more apparent the longer it were to go on.

This is for the best...Clarke's never been an unnecessary risk taker, but she's never been one to settle, either.

She sees more questions about the night forming in his eyes. But her lunch shift will be ending soon, and Lincoln, coming off of his longest shift of the week, is no doubt eager to get home to Octavia, so she stands abruptly before the conversation can continue any longer.

"I have about 20 minutes before I have to get back," she tells him. "I'm going to go grab a coffee, do you want to come with me."

Lincoln declines, standing as well. "I should get home and start planning out your requested Michelin five star menu."

"I'm forever grateful you make up for her shortcomings."

"I'm telling her that too."

"I hope so," Clarke says.

They bid each other goodbye, and to make a show of going to get coffee as she said, Clarke leaves her office and heads down the hallway in the opposite direction. With twenty minutes left in her break, she has plenty of time to make it to the cafeteria, but she doesn't particularly want to sit there for long. So she meanders along the hallway, examining the plaques and pictures of noteworthy hospital donors. She's walked by them a million times without ever looking closely.

Jackson, Wallace, Revel, Herrin...she's been to multiple donor events and learned exactly none of these names. But she recognizes the family portrait of the Herrin family. More specifically, she recognizes one of the daughters: Luna, the girl in the red mask, the one she used to attract Lexa's attention.

Luna Herrin. The daughter of a shipping magnate, maybe to take over his company soon, if she doesn't run. Clarke stares at the picture, unmoved but for the small twinge of guilt for using her.

Oh well. Surely Luna has better options.

Clarke moves along the wall, suddenly much more interested in the donors than in her potential cup of coffee. More names and pictures she doesn't know, but she looks closely at them all anyway, curious, wondering if she'll recognize another. Despite the feeling that she spends half her life within these walls nowadays, the gala taught her that there’s plenty she doesn’t know. Worlds she wants to explore. Faces she wants to put to names, names she wants to put to last names.

The way she moved in her gown, her comfort in conversation with the other gala attendees, there is no way she’s not a donor, not on this wall.

Except she’s not.

There’s no sign of Lexa anywhere on the wall. The rows of portraits culminate in a series of old white men who must be major shareholders and then end at the mouth of the hallway, where it opens on the waiting room; the floating feeling of hopefulness that Clarke leaves her like she’s coming down from a drug high, and the crushing disappointment she’s left with surprises her.

Is it possible to miss someone you don’t know?

As unlikely as burnt cafeteria coffee is to help her current situation, Clarke decides it’s her only remaining option for the last few minutes of her lunch break. Luckily, she doesn’t get far before she hears it.

“Here to check in, as usual.”

She spins around, unable to believe that the voice belongs to the girl she was looking for on the wall.

But there Lexa stands, smiling at the nurse at the reception desk as the woman checks her in.

Compared to the flowing, gilded Athena costume from the masquerade, Lexa looks almost unrecognizable, in dark jeans and a leather jacket—a red flannel pokes out from underneath. The casual, almost grungy look seems impossible after the elegance and timelessness of her look last weekend, but Lexa's face is no less regal.

Her eyes are exactly the same, recognizable even from this distance.

Clarke stares at her, hardly able to reconcile the differences in the woman then and the woman now, but all the more in awe of the similarities. The vise-like crush of disappointment around her limbs lifts and her heart flutters high in her chest, forcing a breathless sort of laugh out of her as she watches Lexa get her visitor’s badge from the nurse, exchange a small joke, and go for the door to the cancer ward, on the opposite side of the waiting room.

It’s only once Lexa slips inside and disappears that Clarke jumps to life with the realization that she stood just a few feet away from the girl she had just spent ten minutes desperately searching for in pictures. The thought sends her after Lexa, into the cancer ward almost at a run.

Clarke doesn’t spend much time in the cancer ward. She’s a surgeon, so she visits to check on her personal patients, say hi to Lincoln, or attend special events he tells her about: plays the kids put on, birthday parties, celebrations of remission. But she always smiles as she walks the brightly colored halls, even in moments like this, because who can resist the brightly painted flowers and zoo animals, half covered by taped up pieces of art made by the kids themselves? The doctors smile as they go door to door, but they have nothing on the grinning kids.

Clarke reminds herself to come back here again, when she’s not facing a ticking clock and an escaping Lexa. She’d like to take her time and go door to door as well.

She rounds a corner, and halfway down the hallway, she spots Lexa walking down the hallway. The other woman is by no means rushing. She strides languidly, hands tucked into her pocket, nodding and greeting nurses and doctors as she passes them. Clarke is able to slow her own pace and still catch up, well before Lexa gets wherever she’s going or senses Clarke’s presence.

Just as she pulls within distance, her breath catches. A week of waiting, and now this. Swallowing hard, she calls out.

“Lexa.”

For a half second, when Lexa turns, Clarke worries that the other woman won’t recognize her; and indeed, the look of surprise that spreads over Lexa’s face when she sees Clarke is as visible as the mask she wore last weekend. The way Lexa looks at her, lips slightly parted, renders Clarke suddenly self-conscious of the scrubs and the coat that are so far from her dress and costume before, but then Lexa’s eyes light up. Clarke only recognizes that a smile has spread across her face when Lexa’s face relaxes in response.

“Clarke,” Lexa says, smile growing. “I—hi.”

One word, and everything else seems to melt away. Lexa closes the space between them, pulling her hands from her pockets as she goes, and it pulls Clarke out of the bustle of the hospital and into a moment between just the two of them

“Hi,” Clarke replies quietly, when Lexa stands in front of her. It’s hard to even believe any of the other night was real—a sentiment they both share. “How have you been?”

_Or rather, where?_

“Regretful,” Lexa answers automatically. “I want to apologize for the donor gala. The way I left you, and it was abrupt and impolite, and I hope I can make it up to you.”

Clarke gives a small laugh, waving away her apology graciously. “Obligations.”

“They come first, but it’s no excuse. I’ve been hoping to run into you here since that night.”

“You’ve been coming here for a week looking for me?” Clarke asks.

“I…well.”

She trails off, hesitating as she seems to search for the right words, and the pause allows Clarke to study her face again. It’s been a week, but the hours between them haven’t tarnished Clarke’s recollection of Lexa the way she feared it did. The angles of her cheekbones and jawline, the way she tosses her dark hair over her shoulder, stand out just as vividly in Clarke’s memory as they look in real life. And when Lexa shares a small smile with her, again, the leaping feeling in Clarke’s chest returns strong as ever. She wants to know this girl, know her world. She’s been drawn to her before she ever knew her name.

“I’m here quite a bit,” Lexa finally says, and it comes out like a confession. She nods at one of the open doors beside them. “My younger brother is a patient here.”

_Oh._

“Oh. Wow. I-I-I’m sorry,” Clarke begins. A patient in the cancer ward. In the space of time it takes for her lungs to deflate with the shock, a half dozen more lines jump to her tongue, courtesy of her years of doctor’s training—it’s just Lexa who throws her off early on. But Lexa reads her and puts up a hand before she can launch into a message of sympathy and inspiration.

“You don’t have to apologize. He’s a strong kid and this is the second time; we’re old pros now. I visit him every other day, which is why I’ve been hoping to see you here.” And again, Lexa glances between the door and Clarke, before looking over her shoulder down the hallway. “Do you think there’s somewhere we could talk? I—”

Clarke sputters quickly in response, tripping over herself. “God, no, I shouldn’t have interrupted you coming to visit him. I’m sorry. I have to get back to my shift anyway, so I should—”

“How long do you have?” Lexa interrupts.

She glances at her father’s watch around her wrist. “Another five minutes or so.”

When Lexa’s voice comes again, after another hesitant pause, it returns softer than ever. “Come meet him,” she tells Clarke. “Before you go back to work. I’d still like to talk.”

Clarke nods. “I’d love to.”

 

*

 

Smiling and open though she already seemed, everything about Lexa softens even more when she opens the door to the room and quietly enters: her footsteps, the look on her face, the wattage of her smile, everything hushed and muted as she pads across the room to the bed where a young boy lays sleeping. Clarke lingers behind her, near the door; she’s not a doctor right now, and this is not her moment to intrude upon.

“Hey, Ponyboy,” Lexa greets him in a murmur as he opens his eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“m’fine,” is the sleepy response.

It brings a smile to Lexa’s face as well as Clarke’s: Lexa’s brother, despite his bleary, sleep-heavy eyes, struggles to sit up and show them how good he’s feeling. Lexa reaches out and ruffles his hair, which sticks up at all angles like the down feather of a fledgling bird. His face is pale and thin, but he looks up at Lexa with bright green eyes, just like hers.

“You look good,” Lexa tells him. “And in a few hours, you’ll be able to come home for a whole six days.”

“And then only two more months until I’m better,” he replies.

Lexa nods. “And you’ll get your puppy.”

“And my ice cream.”

“And your ice cream.”

He looks up at her with adoration all over his face. There’s an air of ritual to their exchange, a call-and-response not improvised but practiced and rehearsed over time like a customary greeting, an affirmation between protective older sister and her little brother. Lexa’s comfort with the nurse at the front desk proves the frequency of her visits to the hospital—this is a tradition, and suddenly Clarke feels like an unwelcome voyeur to an intimate family moment. She has half a mind to turn and slip back out of the room, but Lexa turns to her before she can. She urges Clarke over with a tilt of her head.

“Aden, I want you to meet Clarke,” Lexa says. “Clarke, this is Aden.”

“Hi, Aden.”

He takes one look at her coat, sizing her up. “Are you a doctor?”

“I am a doctor,” Clarke says. “But not right now. I’m just a friend of your sister’s, here to say hi. How are you?”

With a doctor present, Aden is on his best behavior. “I’m fine,” he says, much more clearly than the first time. “Do you know Doctor Lincoln?”

She opens her mouth to answer, but before she can, the recognition hits her: Aden was the little Hercules who had compared his muscles to Lincoln’s at the beginning of the night at the masquerade. The blonde hair and quick smile brings the memory back—and then she recalls watching Lexa from across the bar as the Hercules ran up to her and wrapped his arms around her in a quick hug. Back then, she had thought Lexa was Niylah, and that the kid was just another of Niylah’s patients.

Oh, how the universe works itself out sometimes.

“I do know Doctor Lincoln,” Clarke says. “He’s a very good friend of mine. Were you at the masquerade, dressed as Hercules? I remember you showing off your muscles with Doctor Linc.”

“That was me!”

Clarke glances to Lexa, beaming as she puts it all together, and finds Lexa smiling back. “Hercules and Athena,” Lexa mutters to her. “Aden had been planning it for weeks.”

As Aden launches into the story of Hercules and how Athena was his friend, Clarke listens with rapt attention, nodding, gasping at all the appropriate times; she can feel Lexa’s eyes on her, but Aden is the center of attention right now and he is loving it.

“My muscles aren’t as big, but Doctor Lincoln said that once my treatment is done, they’ll be way bigger. One day I’m going to be as tough as Doctor Lincoln.”

“You’re already way tougher than him!” Clarke says with a laugh. Aden looks unimpressed with her praise—he’s sharper than most kids his age—but Clarke gets a sudden inspiration. Rather than waxing on about how he’s beating his cancer, she leans down and gives him a conspiratorial whisper: “Doctor Lincoln is a really good friend of mine. If I tell you a secret about him, can you keep it?”

That’s like offering him candy. Aden nods eagerly.

“Have you ever heard of The Notebook?”

He shakes his head.

“The Notebook is a really long, boring move about love and romance and boys kissing girls. And Doctor Lincoln _cried_ when he watched it.”

“No way!”

Aden descends into peals of laughter, as best he can with his weak body. There is no way he keeps that secret—Lincoln will be getting ribbed by ten year olds throughout the ward for weeks now. Clarke can’t help herself from grinning, a broad smile on her face as she watches Aden laugh and laugh, and when she turns to Lexa, that smile grows shy when she sees the warm gratitude and appreciation in Lexa’s eyes. When she glimpses fondness in the depths of it, Clarke has to duck her head, turn away, do something to combat the burning in her cheeks that comes with feeling out of her depth. Young cancer patients, she can entertain. Pretty, mysterious girls looking at her like she’s surprised them with roses…she doesn’t quite know how to handle.

“I…I should get back to work,” Clarke tells them both, smoothing out the wrinkles in her coat before giving Aden a warning look. “And remember…I told you to keep that a secret!”

He refuses to promise her, and instead deflects by requesting she stay. Lexa doesn’t quiet him; she’s studying Clarke, waiting for an answer with just as much intent and curiosity as Aden shows. Clarke, however, knows her time is short and waves a hand.

“I would love to stay, but my break is almost over.” She heads for the door, giving them an apologetic look. “But I promise I’ll visit again, Aden.”

A question hangs in the air between Clarke and Lexa. When will she visit Lexa again? Clarke pauses with her hand on the door, looking between them as she tries to put words to that question.

And Lexa is the one to answer it with another query: “How much longer is your shift?”

“Twelve more hours,” Clarke says. “I won’t be done until the middle of the night. But I’ll visit on other days, I promise.”

Lexa nods, offering nothing else and allowing Clarke to leave on a note that they both recognize as far too vague—but, to be fair, it’s no more defined than the strange connection they share, as masked party-goers who shared first a New Year’s Eve kiss and now a sweet moment in a children’s cancer ward. In keeping with the theme of the night they met…Clarke truly has no idea where it will go from here. No idea who Lexa really is. And the mystery of it all…excites her.

 

* 

 

Twelve more hours feels like an eternity before Clarke is finally finished with her shift. Her lunchtime escape proved the highlight of an otherwise monotonous day, with two standard procedures she could have—and nearly did—sleepwalk through, and a hell of a lot of paperwork. None of the Shonda Rimes intrigue that comes along with running into a possible love interest in the hospital hallways. Nonetheless, the thought of Lexa and Aden keeps her emotions high, but the long hours leave her feet aching and her body heavy and tired, supported only by her will to get home and face plant onto her mattress. When her shift is over, this plan gets her all the way to the front doors of the hospital, through the empty fluorescent halls.

And then the sight of Lexa just beyond the glass front doors makes Clarke forget everything else.

3:30 in the morning. Clarke nearly stumbles, half-believing she’s hallucinating the sight: Lexa, in the same clothes as twelve hours ago, striding into the hospital from outside, with a bouquet of roses in hand. The streetlights behind her and and the harsh light from the hospital ceiling above light her up in a way that makes her look ethereal, angelic. It’s no surprise that Clarke stops and stares, unsure if it’s a real sight or just a result of 20 hours of work without sleep.

It allows Lexa to close the distance between them, smirking. “I’ve been looking for you for nearly a week here, and today I run into you twice.”

The smirk sparks something in her. “I’m not sure a middle of the night visit counts as a chance encounter,” Clarke replies, with a glance at the flowers.

Point to Clarke. “I won’t pretend they’re not for you,” Lexa says as she offers out the bouquet. “As an apology for leaving the gala, and to curry enough favor to allow me to show you a better evening.”

And Clarke still remains unconvinced any of this is real, even as she takes the flowers and finds them quite tangible. They stand in an empty lobby; surely it has to be a dream. A pretty girl chivalrously offering her a bouquet and apologizing for impropriety, while looking much like the goddess Clarke initially knew her as. Sharp eyes, sharper eyeliner, the edges of a confident smirk covering an earnest, almost hopeful glow emanating from her face. It shines through the minute cracks, like when she gives a genuine smile when she thinks Clarke’s examining the flowers instead of looking at her. It makes Clarke dizzy, if she’s being honest—worse than the lack of sleep.

“You’re really good at…pretty flowers,” she blurts.

All of Lexa’s casual confidence dissolves into confusion, as easily as pulling off a mask. Her eyes flick from Clarke to the flowers and back.

“I—what?”

And now Clarke knows this is real: only in reality could she stumble like that.

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” she says with a grimace, while her face flames up in embarrassment. “Ignore that, I’m just so tired. It was a twenty-two hour shift.” And when she sees Lexa’s eyebrows go up and her lips forming an apology, her words come out faster to ensure that it doesn’t get any worse: “I meant to say that the flowers are wonderful. And I would like to go out with you…when I’m able to form coherent sentences.”

“Because I’m good at pretty flowers?” Lexa asks, fighting a smile that comes from relief as much as teasing.

Clarke hides her face behind the bouquet. It’s not something she’ll ever let herself live down. “Mostly.”

“I’ll take it. Would you be able to form coherent sentences next Saturday night? I’d like to make the masquerade gala up to you.”

Saturday night, her weekly dinner with Raven, Octavia, and Lincoln. She hasn’t missed one for over a year—but then again, that’s because she’s never had a chance like this. She’s never run into a girl she’s been dreaming about after a chance encounter at a New Year’s Eve gala and been asked out for another night. She doesn’t even hesitate.

“I’d love to.”

_Even more than I’d love to be in bed right now._

She doesn’t intentionally add “with you” to that thought, but for a half-second in this dreamscape, Lexa glances at her if she could not only read her mind, but thinks along the same lines. It flashes her back to their stolen moments in the garden, with Lexa’s skilled hands building a fire that would consume her for the next week—a fire that’s rekindled now, between the two of them. Clarke looks down her neck, remembering the flutter of Lexa’s pulse beneath her lips and her desire to manipulate it, to see what she could do with her hands to make it speed up.

“Then I’ll see you next Saturday,” Lexa says instead, with a finality that seems a precaution against their continued proximity. A girl who makes such grand gestures as 4 AM flowers isn’t the type to get it on in a hospital supply closet.

As much as Clarke suspects she could get Lexa to make an exception, she graciously nods and steps back, and together, they move toward the front doors.

“Would you like a ride home?” Lexa asks as they walk out into the cold air. “Rather than driving while so exhausted.”

“I’ll be fine,” Clarke assures her. “I’m better at driving than communicating while exhausted, and I don’t live far from here. The apartment building on 20th, actually.”

Lexa accepts this with a nod and walks with Clarke the short distance through the parking lot to her car. “I’m looking forward to seeing you on Saturday, Clarke,” she says when they reach it. “I promise I’m a better date than I showed the other night.”

If her almost unreal level of gallantry and her regal way of speaking is any indication, Clarke has no doubt she’s telling the truth. “I’m looking forward to it too, Lexa. Have a good night.”

The weight of the moment begs some sort of parting physicality, but Lexa keeps her hands firmly in her pockets and her spine straight with restraint from closing the distance between them. Clarke can see it in Lexa’s face, and feel it in her own, the desire to continue where they left off last weekend, but there’s an odd understanding between them: wait. Patience will pay off. Here, now, in the hospital lobby, in the parking lot…they deserve better than that. Clarke pulls in a deep breath and accepts it.

“Goodnight, Clarke.”

 

*

 

After her long shift, Clarke gets home and crashes out for eleven hours; when she wakes, dazed and hungry, she takes several minutes to lay in her queen bed and sift through her dreams, separating fantasy from reality. She knows intrinsically that what happened with Lexa at the hospital has to a sleep-deprived fever dream. It’s too ludicrous and surreal not to be. But as the details of her other dreams slip through her fingers like sand, she clings on to her memories of what happened, and when she walks into her kitchen, the flowers on the counter where she left them last night confirm it. It was unbelievable, but it was real.

She offers a mumbled excuse when Raven gets home and asks about the bouquet, keeping this thrilling secret to herself for now until she knows how to handle it properly. It stays quiet in her mind, unmentioned to anyone, until late that night, when she notices a card that had been slipped into the roses. Unsurprisingly, in her sleep deprived state, she had missed it when she put the flowers into a vase.

She grabs the card and opens it, revealing a scarlet invitation with gold-lettering:

_Woods Green Technologies Incorporated Presents_

_The 16 th Annual Night of Mystique_

_An Appreciation Gala for Friends and Supporters_

_Masks and Masquerade attire required_

The card goes on to list the date, time, and location of the event: it’s Saturday night, twenty minutes outside the city limits at some hotel. Clarke’s first reaction is to rebuke the invitation. The idea of attending two masquerade balls in the first three weeks of the year feels inane and she honestly can’t be quite sure that this isn’t a joke being played on her—until she sees a hand scrawled line at the bottom.

_\--To start over. Please attend._

_-Lexa_

After a period of letting this sink in, as she reads the invitation several times over and Lexa’s small handwritten note at the bottom, she comes to a decision.

“Raven!” she shouts into the living room. “I have a story for you. And then I need your help.”

 

*

 

Saturday night rolls around faster than they anticipated. Raven had suggested Clarke order a car service to take her to and from the party, but Clarke opts for a cab instead, a decision she only recognizes as a mistake when she’s standing on the curb in front of her apartment building on a Saturday night, wearing a black evening gown, with a feathered mask tucked under one arm, waiting for her cab as people heading out for a casual evening at dinner walk past and let their stares linger. Her face burns. She sees her cab turn the corner and inch its way toward her through the traffic, and the closer it gets the more appealing darting back into her apartment building seems to be. She doesn’t have to do this. She could be back in sweats five minutes from now.

She’s taking a cab to a million dollar gala. Clarke’s job provides well for her, but this is not her world.

But for some reason, she stays. Clarke can’t name the force that keeps her there but she stays rooted to the spot until the cab pulls to a stop in front of her; she takes a single deep breath, and then climbs in.

The estate-turned-hotel hosting the Woods Green Technologies Incorporated Appreciation Gala sits on several acres of land, in the pastoral countryside twenty minutes outside of the city. Clarke’s cab driver doesn’t seem to have the same reservations about Clarke’s attire that she does, and he chatters on about the city and his family as Clarke sits in the backseat and amuses herself by imagining what kind of characters he must pick up to make her get-up appear so unremarkable. She certainly feels self-conscious; even if she and Raven had decided that she looks good, even if she is quite confident in the way her dress hugs her curves, even if a Black Swan costume is far better than she had worn at her last masquerade, she still feels uncomfortable with it. Maybe she’s just made for scrubs, not wealthy corporate black-tie events.

But despite all of her rumination, when Byer Estate comes into view, Clarke’s disquiet begin to palliate. The hotel is huge, the grounds around it even more expansive. The vine-covered brick façade is far older and grander than she is, and as she looks up at the building, she finds comfort in her insignificance compared to it. She pays the cab driver and steps out onto the driveway, joining a stream of joyful, wealthy guests as they stride from the driveway toward the massive double doors. Just as she is insignificant before the estate house, she is anonymous among the guests—she’s one of them. Inside, she will slip a mask on and stand with the best of them.

And with Lexa.

The thought gives her a burst of new energy and her heels bite into the ground with each of her determined strides. She has to find Lexa, talk to her, interact with her, let the night take them where it may. It’s fresh, mysterious, dangerous, and exciting.

The inside of the building is just as palatial as the outside, gold and mahogany and marble abound, but now that Clarke has set herself to a task and found her place here, she gives no more thought to the aesthetics of her environment or the people around her. In fact, she moves through them as if they aren’t there, at a more hurried pace than the slow parade the marches through the halls toward the ballroom.

First off, the bar. She pays little mind to the grand decorations of the ballroom and instead finds the bar by the crowd growing around it on the opposite side of the huge room. Lexa hovered near the bar for most of the night at the New Year’s Eve gala, sipping drinks—including one Clarke bought her. This seems like the most likely place to meet her again.

Clarke reaches the bar and puts in her order, before leaning back against the bar and taking in the full view of the ballroom, waiting, searching.

A cavalcade of bright colors and inventive costumes. Tigers. Princesses. Birds. Warriors. Queens. But none with quite the right power or presence of the girl that she searches for.

She could, she supposes as she sips her drink, call or text Lexa to arrange a meeting. But she took the cab ride and march into the hotel to immerse herself into this game, and a simple solution like that would rob the experience of its mystique. So far, they’ve built their chemistry and attraction on hidden identities and chance meetings. She won’t give that away quite yet.

One drink. Then two. Ridiculously expensive alcohol that goes down smooth but does nothing for Clarke except drag her slowly down the uneven path toward intoxication. She fends it off by not moving from her position against the bar, watching the ballroom lights dim slowly as the space begins to fill with silhouettes of dancers and revelers. Only when they draw close to the bar can she see the colors of the masks and dresses and suits—behind the masks, eyes flash toward her, drinking in her costume, but they aren’t the eyes she wants to see, so she ignores them.

At last, as she finishes her third drink, her patience is rewarded.

“Clarke Griffin?”

It’s a waiter, young and nervous, as if only hoping he got the right girl. Clarke turns with a raised eyebrow to find him holding out a new drink and a napkin. “I was asked to give this to you,” is his relieved explanation.

She accepts both and sets aside the drink—it’s the napkin that gets her heart racing. She bites her lip to hide a smile as she turns it over to discover the smooth handwriting that has at this point become familiar.

_Black swan was a great choice._

And so it begins.

The waiter stands nearby, either very aware of what’s happening or having been instructed to wait, and offers Clarke a pen when she looks up at him. She scrawls out a short reply— _My turn to see yours—_ but once she hands it to the man, she turns her back on the bar and resumes her position staring out at the dancefloor. She wants a letter back from Lexa before she finds her.

Clarke knows she won’t be disappointed—not after what happened on New Year’s Eve—and when the letter comes back, she’s proven right.

_There is a place set for you at the Woods’ table, if you are interested in joining me for dinner._

There’s no response to that she can write on a napkin, at least none that she’s interested. To play coy now would be counter-productive. Instead, with a rush of adrenaline and a strange, tipsy giddiness, Clarke takes her drink in hand and moves with remarkable steadiness across the ballroom dancefloor, toward the clusters of white-sheathed banquet tables. Call it confidence or call it practice, neither the alcohol in her system or the hummingbird fluttering of her heartbeat pumping that alcohol throw off the determination in her stride. The table in question comes into view quickly: The Woods family is hosting this gala, and therefore their table sits at the center of the room, just on the edge of the dance floor and in full view of the rest of the tables, with the people seated at the table in full view of the guests of the gala. As Clarke draws closer, the dim figures sitting around the table resolve themselves into sharper images of the Woods’ leaders and their guests. Clarke checks each of them, going along the table one by one, until--

Light fingers brush against her bare shoulder from behind, insistent enough to stop her in her tracks—then she feels hot breath on her neck.

“You’re on a mission,” comes a low voice.

Clarke is already smirking when she turns. And instantly, she has to consciously resist the desire to lean in and kiss the young woman in front of her, because so many emotions wash over her at once that they very nearly suppress all logical thought. Loose curls frame Lexa’s face, and a fine black mask covers most of it, leaving only her eyes and the lower half of her face visible; the grey-green of her eyes stands out in the field of black, and her lips become her most prominent feature. They curve in a sly smile and Clarke can only wonder how she could have ever mistaken Lexa for someone else.

“The waiter was taking too long to deliver my napkin to my pen pal,” Clarke says, cool and aloof up until she looks down at the slim, green dress that dips and plunges and clings to Lexa in the right places. She’s glad she got her words out before seeing it.

“Need help finding them to deliver it yourself then?” Lexa asks.

Clarke manages a laugh. “No, not now.”

Lexa drops the act, and it’s strange to see someone so elegant and affluent smile so warmly. “I’m glad you could make it, Clarke. I have a lot to make up for after the last gala, leaving when I did.”

“This and the flowers more than make up for it,” Clarke says, gesturing around at the splendor. “I’d say you did a good job.”

“Not yet,” Lexa replies. The low purr in her voice brings every memory of the night in the hotel garden rushing back, the seconds before Lexa left, when Clarke was wrapped in her arms and within seconds of peeling away her dress. As if her body has stored that heat since the night Lexa walked away, it breaks the dam now and floods through her.

She wants that _now._ She needs it.

Lexa takes Clarke’s hand in her slender fingers and leads her toward the bar; judging by the light in her eyes, cultivating that desire within Clarke was exactly Lexa’s goal, and she knows she has already achieved it. It’s all still a game they play among the swaying bodies and colorful masked faces.

For Clarke, the moment Lexa touched her shoulder, the night changed—it became charged and dark, and where she had previously been determined and uptight and merely a spectator to the festivities, now that she’s hand in hand with Lexa, she’s become one of the revelers alongside her: roguish and enthralled with all of the possibilities, now that the night has truly begun and Clarke’s universe has centered on the two of them.

All around the bar, men and women stand in casual circles, doing more business deals than drinking—not a scene the two girls want to get caught in. Lexa finds them two seats off to the side near the bar, and leaves Clarke’s side only two grab drinks for the both of them. Clarke takes deep, steadying breaths in her absence. She returns just as the band begins to play another song, a number with a deep bass that makes normal conversation impossible. Clarke sips her drink and smiles at the burn of alcohol on her tongue. One step closer.

“So,” Clarke says, leaning in so that Lexa can hear her over the music. “Lexa Woods. When were you going to tell me your last name?”

Lexa gives a rueful smile. “Eventually. I generally save it for later dates. You figured it out easily enough on your own, however.”

That was Raven. She’d insisted on doing her research—purely in the name of Clarke’s protection, of course. And she had been well-rewarded, much to Clarke’s outrage and secret curiosity. She’d never cop to the two hours that the spent sitting on the couch, browsing the web for info about the Woods family, but it just might have happened.

“It wasn’t confirmed until just now,” Clarke tells her, “When you invited me to the table. But I did find Alexandria Woods when looking up Woods Green Tech.”

Lexa lowers her head and stirs her drink, diffident to the compliment in Clarke’s tone. The blonde pushes on:

“Daughter of the founder, assistant COO, eventual CEO, degrees in both law and business, heir to the empire. And you were the one complimenting me on being a young surgeon.”

Lexa’s head snaps up, reticent smile gone. “That _is_ impressive,” she insists I’ve spent enough time with doctors to know how impressive you are, Clarke.”

This turns the tables and now it’s Clarke’s turn to look away, shaking her head at the compliment she doesn’t feel she deserves but unable to suppress the smile it gives her anyway—Lexa’s earnestness is even more charming than her words. Clarke can’t remember the last time she was like this with anyone, so youthful and teasing and unsteady, as if she’s a teenager again. Nor can she remember the last time someone so intoxicatingly attractive sat so close. Clarke’s drink is strong, but it’s not the drink that’s influencing her dark thoughts. She wouldn’t even have to stretch to kiss Lexa in this moment. It would be even easier to press her lips to Lexa’s neck and the smooth slope of her shoulders. And they’re both blessed by the songs the band plays—they’ve pulled their chairs together until they’re touching, and every time either woman wants to say something to the other, they have to lean in to hear above the noise. With every pass, Clarke feels closer to sliding her hand behind Lexa’s neck and bringing her in for a deep kiss.

It very nearly happens the next time Lexa draws her in—Lexa stares at Clarke’s lips as she leans forward, with a hunger that gets Clarke’s heart beating harder, before she reluctantly pulls her gaze up and giving a small smirk. “So, Black Swan, huh?” she asks, voice dripping with the suggestion.

Clarke blushes behind the feathered black mask. It’s heavy handed, she knows. She’ll never admit it. “My roommate already had the mask, it was the easiest option.”

“It’s the best option. You look…like a work of art.”

“And what is your costume?” Clarke asks her, trying to play it off.

“I…couldn’t tell you,” she admits.

“You mean you don’t _know?_ After that perfect Athena costume at the hospital gala?”

Lexa lets out an embarrassed laugh at Clarke’s teasing, and Clarke thinks to herself that Lexa needs no costume as all. She’s gorgeous as it is, and as long as Clarke can keep making someone so gorgeous smile, the night will be a success.

Lexa explains once she’s recovered: “That took planning. I wasn’t going to attend tonight’s event until I extended the invitation to you.” She leans closer, pulled into Clarke’s orbit. “Can I get you another drink?”

“I’m perfect, right now,” Clarke says, closing her eyes to the pleasant fogginess of being slightly drunk.

“You are.”

“You’re very smooth.”

“If you say so. I’m a little drunk as well.”

“Wanna dance?” Clarke proposes, though it’s half-hearted. A glance out at the ballroom reveals the reason why. Dinner hasn’t even been served yet, the lights are still on, and guests haven’t had enough time since arrival to imbibe the amount of alcohol that would provide sufficient cover for how close she wants to be to Lexa on the dancefloor. It would require more gentility than she possesses to dance with Lexa modestly when her neckline plunges like that, or when Lexa’s lips part slightly every time she looks at Clarke’s body.

For this, she gives a silent prayer of gratitude when Lexa scans the dancefloor and shakes her head. What little Clarke can see of Lexa’s face beneath the mask, she tries to read: the girl runs her tongue over the edge of her teeth, thinking, darkened green eyes exploring the room for options. As she deliberates, Clarke’s eyes wander downward over her neck, her fluttering pulse, her smooth shoulders. Then, on Lexa’s ribcage, a line of black catches Clarke’s attention: a tattoo, mostly disappearing beneath her green dress. The sudden desire to run her hands down that tattoo nearly knocks Clarke’s world off its axis.

“Jesus,” Clarke breathes.

Lexa turns toward her in surprise. “What?”

“Oh—nothing,” Clarke says, entirely unconvincingly. She skin burns hot under Lexa’s careful study—she knows she’s giving the game away, making it obvious, but she doesn’t care. Her heart is pounding and her breath comes shallow and she wants Lexa now.

Lexa leans in, under the guise of reaching past Clarke for a napkin on the table. She plants a kiss on Clarke’s shoulder.

“I have a room here,” Lexa murmurs against her skin.

It takes Clarke a second to recognize Lexa’s proposal. “Dinner will be served soon,” she replies quietly. “Won’t you be missed?”

“No. And we’ll order room service. In the morning.”

Clarke nods, breathless.

 

* 

 

The moment the elevator doors slide shut, Clarke and Lexa are sealed off from the requisite propriety of a corporate event, and all of the prying eyes that enforce it; they now belong entirely to themselves, in this moment. And as the old-style elevator rumbles to life and begins a creaking ascent to the third floor, Clarke leaves her self-control on the first.

In one smooth motion, she pushes her black mask off her face and leans into Lexa, draping her arms around her neck and letting their lips fall together. It’s so fluid and sudden that Lexa stiffens in surprise, but as soon as Clarke takes a deep breath and deepens the kiss, Lexa smiles into her lips and becomes warm and supple under her hands, kissing back hard and bringing her arms up to pull Clarke tight against her body.

It’s what they’ve been waiting for all night and truthfully, this is where they should have gone first. But for all the pent-up tension and barely-bridled electricity that threatened to light up the room if they had taken one false step, the same way the elevator isolates them, it slows them. There’s no greed, no gripping fingers or backs against the wall—just want. Clarke and Lexa make out slowly, tasting and luxuriating in each other, a preview of what the long night will offer.

The elevator dings and the doors slide open onto an empty hallway.

Clarke and Lexa don’t notice. The doors slide shut again.

“Wait.” Lexa pulls away in confusion after a moment. “Wait, fuck, Clarke, we’re here.” She gives a breathless laugh, pulling her mask completely off her head as Clarke turns to see if she’s telling the truth. “Come on.”

When they step out of the elevator, Lexa stops and presses a room key into Clarke’s palm. “Here. It’s room 338, at the end of the hall. Give me a second, I’m going to call home and make sure Aden is settled for the night and everything is okay.”

Clarke pauses, uncertain.

“Go ahead,” Lexa urges, pulling out her phone. “Go check out the room, it’ll just take a minute.”

She hangs back by the elevator as Clarke strides ahead, slowly at first, but building pace as she moves down the hallway in her desire to get to Lexa’s hotel room. Her change from outsider who questioned even getting in the cab to come to the gala, to drinking with the best of them still shocks her; though, she supposes with a smile, it comes as no surprise that she’s leaving before dinner is even served. The only difference is _why_ she’s leaving.

With a chuckle, she arrives at room 338 and opens the door.

The light from the hallway illuminates just enough of the room for Clarke to see a vase of roses waiting on the table nearest the door; a disbelieving laugh escapes her chest and she steps further into the room, clicking on a light. Rose petals, on the bed and the floor. Unlit candles on the nightstands and dresser. Even the quintessential bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. Lexa Woods, heir to multinational Woods Green Technology, is a cliché romantic.

Footsteps in the hallway behind her signal Lexa’s arrival. “Well,” Clarke teases as she turns back to the doorway, “This was presumptuous. You’re a confident one, Lex—”

Lexa’s pale, blank face renders her silent.

“I’m so sorry, Clarke, something’s wrong with Aden—”

“What?” Clarke asks, body suddenly running cold as well. “What’s happening, what’s wrong?”

“I—I don’t know.” Lexa, terrified, gestures at the phone in her hand as if it has the answer. “Titus just told me that he’s agitated, scared, his temperature is slightly elevated, he’s refusing to take any medicine…I don’t know. I have to get home, I’m sorry.”

Making her decision in an instant, Clarke grabs her bag from the tabletop and strides out the door ahead of Lexa. “Let’s go then, I’m coming with you.”

“What?”

“I’m a doctor, Lexa, I can help you. Let’s go.”

Lexa doesn’t hesitate.

 

*

 

The Woods have a family driver at the ball; Lexa finds him near one of the exits and soon they’re on their way. Bu the man doesn’t seem to understand Lexa’s urgency, evident all over her face as he casually glides through traffic. Clarke bites her lip as she watches. She’s a pediatric surgeon; uncomfortable as she is with interfacing with nervous parents, she’s not going to let Lexa panic like this over her younger brother for the entire ride home without trying to help her.

“He’ll be okay,” she says quietly. “He’s just in a heightened emotional state, from what it sounds like. Seeing you will help him calm down, take his medicine, and get to sleep.”

She reaches across the backseat and puts her hand on Lexa’s shoulder. Lexa just nods, understanding that Clarke made a sound but not really hearing her. It takes a moment before she seems to realize that Clarke is even touching her. She glances at Clarke’s hand in surprise, and tries to form words in a dry mouth.

“Thank you.” She says it like she’s entirely unaccustomed to the support, and with expressing gratitude in return. “This is just…not normal for him. He and I have always been closest. I’m the first one he asks for. My parents are gone a lot, and getting them involved in this would complicate things. So it’s just him and me. Usually.”

Clarke’s small smile of admiration stays hidden in the darkness. “He’s lucky to have you.” And then, with a hint of playfulness: “Did Aden pick out your costume again tonight?”

Lexa manages a smile. “He didn’t pick out a theme for me to match, which is why I couldn’t give you a name. He did approve this dress before I left, though. He said I should be a swamp monster, with the green and black.”

If she could laugh in their situation, speeding toward a sick kid, then she would; she resolves to laugh about it another time and gives a small chuckle instead.

“I’m not used to these events,” Lexa continues, “I’m not usually this person. My family’s wealth and the glamor and attention and pampering…I’ve never liked it. It doesn’t fit my personality. But he wanted to go to the New Year’s Eve costume ball to be with his friends. He was the reason I had to leave that night, by the way,” she adds, giving Clarke a quick, rueful smile, just as they pass beneath a streetlight that illuminates her face. “He wanted to watch the fireworks from our hotel window.”

Clarke feels her heart swell to bursting.

 

*

 

The feeling persists through the rest of the car ride, only to be obscured by renewed tension and worry once they arrive at Lexa’s apartment building and hurry toward the elevators. In entering the code to take her up to her floor, Lexa mistypes the numbers twice, tapping clear with a whispered obscenity each time. She seethes in silence as the elevator ascends; they don’t speak, but simply count each floor, each one seeming to pass slower than the last. When the doors glide open on a floor with only a single door, Lexa bursts out of the elevator like a horse from the gate.

“Is he okay?” she calls into the apartment as soon as she swings through the front door. Clarke follows close on her heels. “Where is he?”

The penthouse apartment they walk into fits perfectly with the glamorous version of Lexa that Clarke knows from the gala, and not at all with the scared, determined one calling out for her sick younger brother right now. But despite the situation, some part of Clarke can’t help but marvel around at the place: artful light fixtures hang down from the vaulted ceiling; plate-glass windows line one wall and reveal a grand view of downtown; a sunken living room centers around a modern slate fireplace; stainless steel appliances and black granite are just visible through an archway opposite the wall of windows; a floating staircase leads to a second level. In response to Lexa’s shouts, an older, balding man appears at the top of this staircase.

“He’s in his bed,” he says simply, gesturing them up and casting a look of confusion at Clarke. Lexa doesn’t bother to explain as she speeds past the man, so he meets Clarke’s eyes and questions her by way of introduction: “I’m Titus, the family butler. And you are…?”

“I’m Clarke. I…work at the hospital.”

He raises an eyebrow at the fact that Clarke is wearing a gown instead of scrubs, but says nothing as she follows Lexa down the hallway and into one of the bedrooms.

Lexa stands over Aden’s bed, speaking in soothing tones as he stares up at her, as wide-eyed and scared as his big sister looks. Clarke picks out the symptoms immediately—the shallow breathing, the confusion, the trembling—and clicks into her professional mode. She crosses the room and steps to Lexa’s side without hesitation.

“Aden, Ponyboy, you’re okay,” Lexa’s saying, even as he continues to shake his head and grimace as if in pain. “Hey—can you talk to me?”

“Has this ever happened before?” she asks Lexa.

“I’m here, I’m here,” Lexa murmurs to him. She glances quickly at Clarke. “A few times, but we’ve always been at the hospital when it does. So I don’t—”

“It’s heightened anxiety, a drug side-effect. You’ve probably been given medicine for it.”

“Everything we have is in the box in the top shelf in the cabinet outside.”

Clarke whirls and strides out of the room. She finds the cabinet, grabs the box, and starts opening different compartments until she finds the syringe and supplies she’s looking for and hurries back into Aden’s room, where Lexa’s now sitting with Aden on his bed, rubbing his leg.

“This is an auto injector,” Clarke tells her in a low voice, showing her the syringe while shielding it with her body so that Aden won’t see it and panic. “Aden’s doctors would have already set the correct dose; we just need to administer it. Talk to him, keep his attention on you, and I’ll give it to him on the other side of the bed.”

Lexa nods and Clarke moves to the other side of the bed to take a seat, which causes Aden to direct his attention to her. “Aden?” she asks him. “Do you remember me? I’m Lexa’s friend, we met at the hospital.”

Surprisingly, he nods, though he looks no more calm than he did with Lexa. “That’s good!” she says, as she slides the cap off of the hidden syringe. “My name is Clarke. I need you to do something for me: look at your sister.”

He obeys and turns to Lexa. “Now look back at me. Now to Lexa. Now to me. Now make a silly face at your sister. Now she’s gonna tell you a story about a swamp monster, okay?”

Startled into action, Lexa struggles for a moment before launching into a cobbled-together story about a swamp monster, with Aden listening raptly. Before he can notice her movement, Clarke leans forward, pushes the leg of his basketball shorts up to expose his thigh, cleans the area with an alcohol wipe and administers the injection deep into the muscle. She sighs with relief as the medicine leaves the syringe. For her efforts, Aden gives her a sharp yelp and a look of betrayal, but Lexa quickly regains his attention with more chatter about the swamp monster.

Clarke stands and steps away from the bed. “It’ll take a little while to absorb, just keep talking to him and keeping him calm. In a bit, he should calm down enough to take his other medications and go to sleep.”

Lexa looks up at her with pure, unadulterated gratitude in her eyes. “Thank you, Clarke.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“I’ll be fine, thank you.”

Clarke inclines her head and leaves the room, giving Lexa and Aden some space. She heads back down to the lower level and into the kitchen, finding a container for medical supply disposal near the trash and putting the syringe into it. Titus appears briefly to tell her that he’s been excused for the night and that she can find plates and utensils in the kitchen cabinets, before he leaves the penthouse and Clarke stands alone in the kitchen.

She pours herself a glass of water and leans back against the counter. What a night. The weight of it all falls on her then and she feels suddenly exhausted and unsure of herself, the same way she feels when she allows the parents in to see their child following a successful surgery. Clarke knows the way out, and she has Lexa’s phone number. She should probably leave—but something compels her to stay.

 

*

 

She doesn’t know how much time has passed when Lexa finds her; she has been dozing on the couch and awakens at Lexa’s gentle touch on her shoulder.

“Is Aden okay?” Clarke mumbles, sitting up.

Lexa sits on the coffee table in front of the couch, staring at Clarke with a creased brow. “You’re still here,” she says, like it’s a fact she can’t believe.

“Of course I am.” When Lexa doesn’t reply, Clarke jolts out of her dream state and launches into an apology as she tries to get up. “God, I’m sorry, I can leave; I should—”

“No! No, you’re fine,” Lexa says. She puts her hand on Clarke’s shoulder to keep her from standing up. The quizzical look on her face doesn’t fade, though. “I was just…surprised. But Aden’s doing okay. He finally fell asleep, like you said he would. Thank you, Clarke.”

Clarke nods. “I’m glad he’s feeling better.”

“I’m glad you were here,” replies Lexa. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

“So am I.”

A silence stretches between them as words lose the ability to communicating everything in their hearts and minds in that moment. Clarke’s eyes lower to Lexa’s lips and back up again; they become conscious of the space between them and how easy it would be to close, and how much they want to close it—but there’s a sense of exhaustion draped over the two of them that prevents them from taking that plunge again. Clarke manages a smile. Maybe another night.

“What time is it?” she asks, breaking the moment.

“Almost midnight. Are you hungry? Titus is gone for the night, but I can make us something to eat.”

Clarke can’t lie: the moment Lexa mentions food, she realizes how hungry she is and how hungry Lexa must be after they both missed dinner. The look on her face tells all and Lexa motions her toward the kitchen.

“I know I promised you room service after we skipped out on the gala dinner, but this won’t be it,” she says with a quiet chuckle. “I can only manage simple meals.”

She has Clarke take a seat at the counter as she fishes eggs, cheese, and an assortment of vegetables out of the refrigerator. As she prepares the eggs in a bowl, she offers Clarke everything from wine to water to soda, all of which Clarke refuses, content to watch Lexa work: seeing a beautiful girl in a full ball gown cook breakfast at midnight is a sight Clarke never wants to forget. After a moment of watching quietly, her desires take over and she slides out of her seat and moves around the kitchen island until she’s standing beside Lexa, still wordless.

Lexa tosses her a small smile before returning her attention to the food.

“Now that your brother is okay,” Clarke murmurs, “I want to tell you that tonight has been great, aside from what happened to him. The gala, the hotel room, and now this.”

With her hand on the dial for the stovetop, Lexa pauses before turning it on. “It didn’t exactly go the way I planned.”

“What did you have planned?”

She shrugs. “What you saw in the hotel room. The roses, the candles…I wanted to give you an evening that would have made up for me leaving the first gala. And a breakfast the next morning, to top it off. If you would have stayed for one.”

Clarke gives a pointed glance to the omelets Lexa is preparing. “I don’t think you’re very far off from what you had planned, to be honest.”

“I rather am, I’m afraid.”

“How so?”

With that, Lexa turns her body fully, bringing her hands up to the sides of Clarke’s face and leaning in; she noses into a kiss that Clarke accepts with a heavenly sigh. A warm, golden rush flows through her, from Lexa’s lips against hers all the way down to her feet, and the night suddenly clicks into perfect clarity, as if time spent not kissing Lexa through a veil over everything. She needs Lexa’s body against hers, she needs Lexa’s hands on her, and at last it’s all hers. Their kiss has none of the frenetic desperation of their first night in the garden; nor any of the slow, cavalier feel from earlier in the elevator. It feels exactly right for them, kissing lighter and then deeper with the rhythmic motions of waves on the sand. They both know where this is ending up, which means the food Lexa was making lays quiet forgotten on the counter beside them

Lexa pushes gently on Clarke’s shoulders, finding the girl willing and pliant beneath her hands as she maneuvers her backwards while they kiss; once Clarke’s hips bump the kitchen island, Lexa lifts her onto it, changing the angles of their kiss so that now Clarke is looking down to meet her lips and Lexa stands between her spread legs, head tilted upward.

When Lexa breaks away and moves down the graceful curve of Clarke’s neck, Clarke has just enough remnants of conscious thought to voice a question: “Lexa…remember how you told me the glamour and galas didn’t fit your personality?”

Lexa pulls away, head cocked to the side. “I do. Why?”

“What would we have done if you hadn’t taken me to a gala?”

A smile pulls at her lips. “Honestly, I would have taken you to a nice dinner, and afterward to an ice cream place near the park that I love. That’s a truer version of me, that’s where I’m more comfortable.”

Clarke thinks back to the fact that she nearly abandoned the gala altogether due to her discomfort in this world. She gives a smile to match Lexa’s.

“I like both versions of you.”

Lexa answers her with a kiss on her neck.

Clarke tilts her head back as kissing begins to build to something more: with her soft lips, Lexa explores Clarke’s shoulders and collarbone, dipping down to kiss a trail along the neckline of her dress. She’s patient, and polite, up until the moment Clarke pulls back and gives Lexa a nod as she reaches behind her to unzip her gown and slide free of the bodice of the dress.

With Clarke’s breasts and bra on display for her, Lexa stares in awe of the sight, mouth open, eyes dark. It takes Clarke’s impatient shifting on the counter to spur Lexa into motion, but even then, she moves luxuriously, lavishing attention on Clarke’s chest, kissing down into the valley between her breasts and tugging her bra down to taste more of her skin, focusing on one with her mouth while her hand cups and caresses the other. Under her dedicated ministrations, Clarke’s heart begins to beat faster. Faster and faster, she inhales the scent of Lexa’s shampoo, exhaling out little moans of need whenever Lexa finds a sensitive spot on her chest. She knots her fingers in Lexa’s hair, tugging only gently to urge her on.

When Lexa runs her hands over Clarke’s legs on either side of her, Clarke squeezes them around her waist in a silent appeal and invitation, to which Lexa rises. She runs her hands up Clarke’s legs again, but this time under the fabric, and from her position sitting higher than Lexa, Clarke watches the black fabric of her dress rise with Lexa’s hands, revealing her goosebumped skin up to her waist.

“You’re perfect,” Lexa murmurs, looking up at her. Clarke leans down and recaptures her lips as Lexa’s hands find the edge of her lace panties. To take them off would require Lexa to pull away. She reveals how much she doesn’t want to do that when she slips her fingers under the hem and slowly sinks her middle finger into Clarke.

Clarke’s moan starts low in her throat and rises as Lexa slides into her. “Fuck,” she groans, as Lexa enters her fully and then begins to pull back out, just as slowly as before; Clarke’s soaked and there’s no resistance, just Lexa’s patience. She indulges in the feeling the same way she did when kissing Clarke’s breasts.

At Clarke’s pleading, though, Lexa relents. As she kisses Clarke’s neck with a tender touch, she adds a finger and begins to move faster. Nonetheless, the increase in speed comes torturously slowly for Clarke, who tries all manner of moans and whimpers and muttered, breathy “ _God, Lexa”_ s to get the girl to give her what she needs. But it’s her fingers tightening in Lexa’s hair and the nip of her teeth at Lexa’s bottom lip that finally motivate Lexa to full speed and it’s with a burst of pleasure low in her stomach that Clarke begins rolling her hips as Lexa fucks her hard and fast on the counter.

The symphony of Clarke’s cries is kept soundless by Lexa’s kiss but when Clarke feels the coiled pressure between her legs tighten and then snap, she wrenches away from Lexa’s lips and buries her face in her neck, gasping in deep breaths and trying to stifle her moaning against Lexa’s skin as she rides Lexa’s fingers through her orgasm.

“God, you sound so pretty,” Lexa breathes. She works Clarke down with a deft hand, staying deep inside her for a long moment to relish in the feeling of Clarke fluttering around her fingers; her other hand rubs up and down Clarke’s back in a steady, comforting rhythm. Clarke drops her head to Lexa’s shoulders and tries to stop her legs from shaking.

“You’re amazing,” Clarke says. “Fuck.”

They stay wrapped in each other for a long time, basking in the closeness they’ve wanted all night. Finally, when they break the silence, it’s Clarke who speaks.

“Is that closer to the night you had planned?” she asks.

Lexa looks down at the two of them. They stand in the kitchen, still wearing their heels and ball gowns, with Clarke on one counter and Lexa’s abandoned breakfast on the other. She smiles, despite the absurdity of it all. “Not quite. But it’s close. I had more planned.”

“Oh really?”

“Really.”

“Show me.”

“I’d have to take you to bed…” Lexa leads, raising a brow. Clarke grins and kisses her, fingers ghosting up her sides.

“What about your eggs?” she asks.

Lexa laughs. “I told you; I wanted to make you breakfast in the morning, if you’ll stay.”

Clarke nods. “I’ll stay.”


End file.
